Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 590 Fujian Emergency Report
(Where is the monthly pass?)
Today Li Jing originally only wanted to go back after talking with Zhang Yan, but seeing Zhang Yan's happy face, he really couldn't bear to go back just like that.

After all, Li Jing's heart is not made of iron. Zhang Yan has paid so much for him, just for him to spend more time with her. If he just left, Zhang Yan might be sad.

After a while, Zhang Yan took a ruler to measure Li Jing's clothes. After measuring, Zhang Yan took a pen and paper to write down the measurements.

Seeing that Zhang Yan recorded the data with a brush, and the writing was still in Chinese characters, Li Jing's heart moved, and he suddenly smiled: "I said, if you have time to learn counting from Yinger in my house, it is really inconvenient for you to record in Chinese characters. I gave Yinger a counting method, counting with Arabic numerals, which is simple and convenient."

Zhang Yan was puzzled and asked, "Arabic numerals? What do you mean?"

Li Jing was taken aback when he said Arabic numerals to others. No one had ever asked him what Arabic numerals meant. It was just what he said, and others learned it. Zhang Yan was the first person to ask this question .

If it was in the past, Li Jing really couldn't answer this question, but after looking through many ancient books in the palace, Li Jing knew that Arabic numerals were actually introduced to China very early, just because it was also very convenient for China to use chips to count at that time. Therefore, Arabic numerals have not attracted much attention in China, nor have they been popularized.

After organizing the language, Li Jing said with a smile: "Arabia is a nation, and this nation has many countries. These countries are in the west of our Ming Dynasty. Have you heard of Dashi and Persia?"

Zhang Yan nodded.

"The cannibals and the Persians are Arabs." Li Jing laughed.

"Oh, I understand. Arabic numerals are numbers used by Arabs. It is the same as Han people counting with chips." Zhang Yan laughed.

Li Jing smiled and nodded: "It's really smart."

After a pause, Li Jing continued: "However, the Arabic numerals were not invented by the Arabs, they were invented by the Indians, and then spread to Arabia, and then spread to all parts of the world by the Arabs. Well, India is Tianzhu, see Journey to the West Have you passed? The Tianzhu mentioned in it is India."

"My lord knows a lot." Zhang Yan said with a smile.

Li Jing smiled and said, "Bring the pen and paper, and I'll write it for you."

Zhang Yan took the pen and paper as she said and put it in front of Li Jing.

Li Jing wrote ten Arabic numerals on the paper with a pen, and then explained how to write two-digit and three-digit numbers.

Zhang Yan Bingxue is smart, draws inferences from one instance, and immediately knows how to write numbers with more digits.

Then Li Jing talked about how to use Arabic numerals for calculation.

In fact, calculating with Arabic numerals is basically the same as calculating with chips, but when recording, it is undoubtedly more convenient to use Arabic numerals.

Seeing Zhang Yan watching intently, Li Jing smiled and said, "Understood?"

"Understood. But if it's that simple, do I need to go to the mansion to learn from my wife?" Zhang Yan asked suspiciously.

Li Jing smiled and said, "Aren't you bored staying here all the time? You can't go around because of your status. Only when you come to my house to talk to Yinger, others will not gossip."

Smiling, Li Jing handed the pen to Zhang Yan: "You write it, write it several times, and when you get used to counting in Arabic numerals, you will find it very convenient to keep accounts."

Zhang Yan nodded slightly, took the brush, and started to write slowly like the number Li Jing wrote just now.

It's just that these ten Arabic numerals look simple, but it's really not easy to write these crooked numbers suddenly when you're used to writing horizontal and vertical brush characters.

Zhang Yan wrote it several times, but the crooked numbers on the paper looked like earthworms crawling, and she couldn't help feeling ashamed.

Seeing beads of sweat dripping from Zhang Yan's forehead, Li Jing smiled and said, "Don't worry, when you first wrote it, you were not used to it, just write it a few more times."

Zhang Yan blushed and said, "This brush is too soft, it's inconvenient to draw circles."

Hearing Zhang Yan describe writing numbers as drawing circles, Li Jing couldn't help laughing.

Seeing Li Jing laughing at herself, Zhang Yan raised her hand and gave Li Jing a gentle thump: "You are laughing at me."

Li Jing raised his eyes and saw Zhang Yan's shy face, which was so bright and out of place, he couldn't help but feel flustered.

Raising his hand to grab Zhang Yan's hand, Li Jing's heart skipped a beat.

People like Zhang Yan are so exhausted to write numbers with a brush, wouldn't it be slower for those Mongolian children to learn?Anyway, why not use a brush to write numbers?Wouldn't it be more convenient to write with a hard pen?Because the hard pen is easy to control, you can learn to write quickly.

But what to use instead of a brush?The pencils, ballpoint pens, and fountain pens used in later generations cannot be made now.

After pondering for a while, Li Jing suddenly thought that those foreigners don't know how to use brushes, so what do they use to write?Thinking about those missionaries in Beijing, Li Jing patted his forehead lightly, Tang Ruowang and those missionaries seemed to write with goose feathers.

After thinking for a while, Li Jing turned his head and said outside the door: "Xiao Jiu, send someone to find Tang Ruowang and ask him for some pens for writing. They are not brushes. The pens they want to use themselves seem to be made of goose feathers."

Xiao Jiu responded outside the door, and arranged for a guard to look for Tang Ruowang.

And Zhang Yan couldn't help but wondered: "Use goose feathers as pens? How do you write?"

Li Jing said with a smile: "The characters written by foreign ghosts are different from our Chinese characters. Their characters cannot be written with brushes, and they don't know how to make brushes. They use bird feathers to write."

"Isn't it a savage to write with bird feathers?" Zhang Yan said dumbly.

Li Jing smiled: "Hehe, it's a bit too much to say that you are a savage, but it is far from the profound culture of our Han people."

"Then you still use their pens to write?" Zhang Yan wondered.

Li Jing said with a smile: "The ruler is short and the inch is long. It is definitely not good to write Chinese characters with goose feathers, but it is very useful for writing Arabic numerals."

Zhang Yan nodded slightly.

At this moment, Xiao Lan, Zhang Yan's personal maid, walked over gracefully, and said to the two of them, "Your Majesty, the Duke, the meals are ready."

Li Jingjing nodded and stood up, took two steps and asked suddenly: "Have Xiao Jiu prepared their meals?"

Zhang Yan said with a smile: "Can you not prepare? If you make them hungry, why don't you give me little shoes later?"

Li Jing smiled, and led by Zhang Yan to the back room.

……

In the middle of March in the 11th year of Chongzhen, the weather finally started to warm up. Li Jing and Zhu Youjian seized the time and chose a day to host the spring plowing ceremony at Xiannongtan.

In fact, if the weather is normal, spring plowing should have been done long ago, but there is no way. The weather in the north this year continues to be cold. If spring plowing is carried out according to the normal time, crops will not be able to grow at all.Although it is a month late now, as long as there is enough rain, a bumper harvest can still be guaranteed.

Li Jing attaches great importance to this year's spring plowing, because whether this year's grain harvest will be related to the expansion of the army, the Ministry of Military and Political Affairs issued a recruitment order to expand the army by 100 million.

Therefore, in order to ensure smooth spring farming this year, Li Jing ordered the household department to allocate a large sum of money to purchase a large number of cattle and horses and distribute them to farmers for farming needs.

Sitting in the cabinet signing room, Li Jing flipped through the documents sent from various places and approved them at will.

"Marshal, it seems that the farming tasks in the northern provinces are basically completed. Hong Chengchou's report said that there was a rain in Shaanxi after the spring plowing. It seems that Shaanxi does not need to worry about the food problem this year." Shen He was reviewing the documents and said.

Li Jing shook his head: "Don't take it lightly! There is not enough rain in Shaanxi these years. Although it has rained a lot now, there is still nothing to see. We still have to be prepared."

Shen Zheng nodded slightly.

After he stopped writing, Li Jing suddenly said, "What do you think about the Jiangsu case?"

Shen Zheng pondered for a while and said: "According to the investigation results reported by Zhang Tongchang, the counties in Jiangsu have transferred the grain stored in the government treasury of the previous year into last year's grain tax, so the grain tax they reported last year is false. , but the amount of food is not bad, these officials are just trying to lie about their achievements, and they have no corruption, I think it is enough to warn the officials in Jiangsu."

Li Jing shook his head lightly when he heard the words: "Wait a minute, I will entrust Bie Shan with full responsibility for this matter, wait for him to return to Beijing, and see how he plans to deal with it."

Turning his head to look at Yuan Shu, he said, "Brother Boying, your letter from Jingzhi said that you have made sense of those people in Fushe. Let's see when this year's Enke will open."

Yuan Shu pondered for a while and said: "If you take the questions given by the commander in chief, I don't think many of these people can pass the exam."

Li Jing smiled and said: "I don't expect to have a few people who can answer almost all three questions. Those who can answer one question well are already good. We must give these people some sweetness. With these people's drive, future The exam will be easy. In addition, with last year's unsuccessful exam as a foreshadowing, these people should have a little bit of confidence this year, as long as they are better than last year."

Yuan Shu said with a smile: "Since the commander-in-chief's request is not too high, let's set it in mid-May."

Li Jingjing nodded: "If the exam starts in mid-May, the time is just enough, so let's set it in mid-May. From the questions I gave a few days ago, you can choose a few questions from them and distribute them to the provinces for use as test papers. Let the provinces The governor and the chief envoy told the students that as long as they do well in the provincial examination, they can become an official, and if they want to go further, they can wait until the next year to take the general examination."

"This...doesn't the commander-in-chief need to rewrite the question?" Yuan Shu pondered for a while and asked.

Li Jing waved his hand: "If I can't even trust you guys, so what if I re-write the test papers? Will it not be leaked when the test papers are sent to the provinces? Let me tell you the truth, I am not worried about leaking the test questions for such a question. , even if those students know the questions in advance, it is not easy to make a satisfactory answer sheet."

Yuan Shu said with a smile: "That's true. If I took such a question when I took the scientific examination, even if I knew the test questions in advance, I'm afraid I would be caught blind."

"Hehe, Brother Bo Ying is being modest, such a topic will definitely not be difficult for Brother Bo Ying." Li Jing laughed.

Yuan Shu bowed and saluted: "Then I'll go back and get ready."

Li Jing waved his hand, picked up a memorial and continued to read it.

At this moment, the guard outside the door reported: "Fujian urgent report!"

(End of this chapter)